Business Information and Analytics Center (BIAC)

Private and public enterprises increasingly realize the value of data as a strategic asset. Organizations with significant investments in acquiring, managing and analyzing data to enhance decision-making are competitively advantaged over peers that may not devote sufficient attention and resources to these activities. To help organizations and individuals excel in the data-driven business world, Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management is pioneering a bold, comprehensive initiative - the Business Information and Analytics Center (BIAC).

All areas of Krannert have a strong interest in data-centric work and will benefit from the cutting-edge research and experiential learning projects for both undergraduate and graduate students that the BIAC will foster, making Purdue a leader in STEM-based business education and research.

Mission: Collaborating with faculty, students and corporate partners, the BIAC seeks to enhance research and dissemination of state-of-the-art information technologies and analytical techniques to utilize the vast amounts of data available today in order to deliver actionable insights into business decision making.

Case Competition

This will be a business case competition in the IT/analytics domain. It will be open to all full-time undergraduate and Master’s students irrespective of their majors. Teams of four students, with at least one from management/business, will participate in the competition. The competition will have two parts. In the first part, all participants will be from Purdue. Each team will analyze a case over four hours and submit a slide deck containing its analysis and recommendations. Based on an evaluation of these submissions, eight to 12 teams will be invited to make presentations in front of corporate judges. The best-performing four teams will be invited to participate in the second part of the competition, which will be a Purdue-IU case competition, where these four teams will compete against four teams selected by IU. This competition will be similar in structure to the first one – each team will analyze a case over four hours (the case will, however, be different from the one used in the first competition). All eight teams from both universities will present their findings to corporate judges. In each part of the competition, the top three teams will receive lucrative cash awards. The sponsoring organization for either part is expected to contribute by providing one or more of the following: case scenario, judges, and funding for the awards and possibly to defray other expenses.

Dates: Intra-Purdue competition: Between mid-September and mid-October, 2018; Purdue-IU competition: Between late October and mid-November, 2018.

Locations: For both intra-Purdue competition and Purdue-IU competition: Purdue University campus, West Lafayette, Indiana (the venue for the Purdue-IU competition alternates between Purdue and IU; it was held at IU in 2017 and at Purdue in 2016, which was the first year this case competition was held).

Invitees: Participants, judges, possibly other representatives from the sponsoring organization, and appropriate Purdue and IU faculty and administrators.

Recognition and Branding: The sponsor will be recognized in announcements, press releases, program descriptions, and possibly even in naming the conference (e.g., Purdue or Purdue-IU IT/Analytics Case Competition Sponsored by Sponsor Name). The participants will be an excellent source of potential recruits for the sponsoring organization.

Data Dive

The data dive will require solving a real-world business problems by analyzing large volumes of anonymized corporate data. It will be open to all full-time undergraduate and Master’s students irrespective of their majors. Interdisciplinary student teams of three to five members, with a minimum of one management/business student and one from another discipline, will participate in the competition. The actual competition will be conducted in one of two ways. In the first approach, all participants will be from Purdue. Each team will have a couple of weeks to remotely work on a data analytics problem faced by a company utilizing a dataset supplied by the company. It will then submit its analysis and recommendations via a slide deck and possibly a short video presentation. Based on an evaluation of these submissions, six to eight teams will be invited to present their findings to a panel of judges consisting of executives from different organizations. In the other approach, participants will be from different universities, and each participating university will be allowed to nominate one or two teams. This approach, in turn, will be implemented in one of two ways. The first implementation will be similar to how the intra-Purdue competition is conducted, with teams having a couple of weeks to work on the problem remotely. In the other implementation, all teams will work continuously for 24 hours on the Purdue campus and present their findings to a panel of judges afterward. Irrespective of the nature of the competition, the top three teams will receive lucrative cash awards. The sponsoring organization is expected to provide data, business problem(s), judges, and possibly computing support, besides financially supporting the event.

Financial Support: ntra-Purdue competition: $10,000 - $15,000; Inter-university competition: $20,000 - $25,000 if analysis is performed remotely over a couple weeks, and $40,000 - $50,000 if analysis is performed at Purdue over a 24-hour period.

Recognition and Branding: The sponsor will be recognized in announcements, press releases, program descriptions, and possibly even in naming the conference (e.g., Purdue or Krannert Data Dive Sponsored by Sponsor Name). The participants will be an excellent source of potential recruits for the sponsoring organization.

Research Conference/ Workshop

The research conference will feature speakers from business, economics, statistics, computer science, engineering, and other areas as they explore the use of data science to solve real-world problems. Therefore, anyone interested in data science from any discipline or background should be able to enjoy the conference and benefit from participating. The conference program will include keynote presentations by well-known domain experts, several paper sessions, a poster session, and one or two panels on emerging issues in data science. Papers and posters will be selected based on a careful review of the submissions. Submission will be open to researchers in all universities and other organizations. The event will span one and a half to two days and provide plenty of opportunities for dialogs and exchanging ideas. Participation will be restricted between 100 and 150 by registration on a first-come, first-serve basis. The funding from the sponsoring organization will be used to partially cover the expenses for a reception, meals, and other necessary arrangements.

Date: Between late May and late July, 2019.

Location: Purdue University campus, West Lafayette, Indiana

Invitees: Keynote speakers, paper and poster presenters, panelists, interested faculty and students from Purdue and other universities, interested industry personnel, and other interested individuals.

Financial Support: $15,000 - $20,000.

Support Deadline: February 1, 2019

Recognition and Branding: The sponsor will be recognized in announcements, press releases, program descriptions, and possibly even in naming the conference (e.g., Purdue or Krannert Data Science Conference Sponsored by Sponsor Name). This will be an excellent forum for the sponsoring organization, as well as other participants, to stay current in the rapidly evolving field of data analytics and big data.